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Tajikistan: Small-Time Debtors Detained, Larger Delinquents Get Away

Oct 13, 2017

Jamshed Ziyoyev (second from left), the majority owner and chairman of Tojprombank, stands beside the heads of Fononbank, Agroinvestbank and Tojiksodirotbank during a Tajik government meeting in 2016 dedicated to a possible government bailout of the four distressed lenders. Tojprombank collapsed in 2017. (Photo: Tajik Presidential Press Service)

Police in Tajikistan announced in early October, via a run-of-the-mill press release, that they had detained a delinquent debtor owing money to the recently liquidated mid-sized lender Tojprombank.

According to the statement, the detainee had taken out a two-year loan for 120,000 somoni ($13,700) that was due for repayment at the start of 2017. The arrest came on the heels of orders issued by Deputy Prime Minister Davlatali Said to the General Prosecutor’s Office to hunt down people still owing money to Tojprombank, which had its license pulled by the Central Bank in February as it was teetering on the brink of collapse.

But as EurasiaNet.org has found, while authorities look intent on punishing Tojprombank’s smaller debtors, larger delinquent loan-holders, many of them linked to the bank itself, are facing no such pressure.

Tajikistan: Small-Time Debtors Detained, Larger Delinquents Get Away

Jamshed Ziyoyev (second from left), the majority owner and chairman of Tojprombank, stands beside the heads of Fononbank, Agroinvestbank and Tojiksodirotbank during a Tajik government meeting in 2016 dedicated to a possible government bailout of the four distressed lenders. Tojprombank collapsed in 2017. (Photo: Tajik Presidential Press Service)